Once crowned 'The Pope of Trash' by William Burroughs for his
no-budget gross out movies such as 'Pink Flamingos' and
'Female Trouble' John Waters is now hailed as the genius behind
Hairspray, which is now a hot Broadway musical. He tells us more
…
'He's finally 18 years old so you can have the hots for
him'
I was just in Romania were I was shooting the Seed Of Chucky Where
I was murdered by Chucky. I'm a big fan of his; he's finally 18
years old so you can have the hots for him. He's legal and bigger
physically. It was weird for me because it took two days to
film my death I'm much more used to being on the other side of the
camera. But the Director was very nice, and very understanding. It
was fine, I'm a big big Chucky fan. I started as a puppeteer, I did
children's birthday parties as a career when I was about twelve
years old. So maybe all directors are closet
puppeteers.
Then I went to Seattle were I had a photo show and then the next
night I did my show 'An evening with John Waters'. Then I
went the next Saturday to San Francisco to promote the Hairspray
musical, that opens in a week, then I'm back in Baltimore for three
days and I'm writing soundtrack album for my new movie with Billy
Sheen that opens in September.
The film's called 'A Dirty Shame'. I'll tell you a little bit about
it, it stars Tracy Ullman who's an owner of a convenience store who
has a concussion and turns into a sex addict and Jonny Knoxville is
the leader of the sex addicts. Chris Isaac is the husband who is
someone who dislikes sex and their daughter is Selma Blair who has
the largest breast enlargements in her hip and is locked up so the
neighbours can't see her.
Tacky Furniture
Some people may think that I have turquoise furniture and leopard
skin everywhere and Cadillac's, I don't have that at all. My
whole house is mostly books. In my museum show 'Change of Life'
that's in New York there's even a pop up version of my house that
my props designer made for my show. There is also a list of my
complete library, every single book I own, over 6000 of them.
Closet Art Collector
I've collected contemporary art my whole life, I follow it and I've
been doing it for quite some time, I just never told anybody before
and I never talked about it in movie magazines or anything I kept
it very very separate. I'm not a closet, everybody knows I'm a fan,
because I collect now I also sell. Basically I've been doing
it for a long time I just didn't ever talk about it when I was
promoting my movies, I kept it separate. I've just bought a piece
by John Miller, it's called 'I am man', it's all covered in brown
everything looks like it's got shit on it, then it's got the
capital letter 'I' in front of a turd brown, I think it's about
self awareness.
'It's almost like an exercise in celebrity school not to say
the same answer'
I have to do an interview almost every single day of my life, I'm
open to answer any question, if I don't want to answer I'll be
happy to bail you out with selected quotes so that they won't
realise I haven't answered. Sometimes when you do lots of
promotional work you feel like a psychiatrist because people are
constantly asking you questions and sometimes, because you don't
want to say the same thing you try to keep yourself alert.
It's almost like an exercise in celebrity school not to say the
same answer. Sometimes you think did I even mean that? It's kind of
revealing psychologically. The one thing I hate is when a
journalist asks about my paycheck.
Home is where the idea (and lunatic) is
I've got an apartment in New York and I go to Massachusetts in the
summer but Baltimore is certainly my home, this is where my office
is and I always come here when I have to think up a new idea.
It's were I'm still inspired it's were I still come to decide what
I'm going to do next. This is where I think it up and this is
where I do it. We have Spiro Agnew, who was a disgraced vice
president under Nixon, We had Marilyn Marie O'Hare a woman that
people feared more than anyone because she had prayer taken out of
school, she was a famous atheist who was murdered last year.
Baltimore definitely has quite a set parade of lunatics.
'I have an electric chair…'
If my house was on fire I'd probably grab my collection of
Polaroid's, any person that comes to my house I take there picture
so for twelve years that's been my diary, I'd probably grab that
box. But it would depend what room I was in and where the door was
and where the fire was, I think that would matter the most. I have
an electric chair, it's the one that Divine was fried in in 'Female
Trouble' it's an exact replica of a real one and in the front hall,
I also have a Tommy gun in a violin case that Johnny Depp gave
me.
'Weird stuff always does happen to me!'
I had to call David Hassellhoff to ask him if he'd do a scene in my
movie were he would be sitting on the toilet on an aeroplane and
really graciously he said yes. Then I had to get my nerve up
on the third take to ask him if he could strain a little. He's a
lovely guy, really funny and had a good sense of humour.
'I play it really loudly in the car'
I like it Hip Hop, it gives me energy, I play it really loudly in
the car, young black kids look over at me like I'm insane when i'm
waiting at a red light in the car. I'm waiting for like a militant
thug gay rapper. If somebody came out even more thuggish than 50
Cent, that just happened to be gay, that would be sooo great.
Fitting In
I'd like people to believe that they don't have to fit in and that
everything they tell them at school isn't true. You've got to find
a way to live and to make yourself feel good about yourself and
whatever you pick to do, and the most important thing is to find a
way to pick a job that you like, and that means usually you have to
create that job yourself.
'A Dirty Shame' opens in
October.
'Change of Life' is out now on
Abrams